User-made sighting reticles

Since update 1.73 "Vive la France" the default sighting reticle for ground vehicles in War Thunder can be replaced with a custom one, for example if you want to recreate a historical representation of the sight. Custom sights will be created by changing settings in the reticle file rather than in any graphic editor.

How to setup a user-made sight

• Open the location where the game is installed and create a UserSights folder;
• If your custom sight is only for one specific vehicle, create a subfolder in the UserSights folder with the ID of that vehicle, for example germ_flakpanzer_IV_Ostwind. If the reticle is for multiple vehicles, create a subfolder called all_tanks;
  
• Copy the sight into the created subfolder;
  
• Restart the game client;
  
• Select the ground vehicles in the hangar where you want to replace the reticle (for convenience);
  
• Open Options → Main Parameters→ Ground Vehicle Battle Settings and click on "Sight Settings";
  
• Select the sight from the "Reticle" menu;
  
• Click "Save" in the box to the left.
  

There is no limit to the number of different aiming reticles you can have on one machine. So you can create a collection of different reticles in a folder and switch between them.

Customizing the sight

The update 2.39 "Dance of Dragons" introduced in-game scope customization, which lets you build your own sight. To open the settings, go to Options → Main Parameters → Ground Vehicle Battle Settings → "Sight Settings".

You will be able to use the created configuration both on a specific vehicle and on all vehicles of the selected rank of a certain nation, which allows you not to create a sight for each vehicle separately. In addition, as in the case of custom sights, you will be able to use any sight on any vehicle in the game (yes, you can even put a modern American sight on the BT-5 if you wish).

The following items are customizable:

• Reticle. You can either select it from the reticles already available in the game, or install a custom reticle, downloaded to the UserSights folder according to the instructions above;
• Rangefinder;
  
• Turret rotation indicator;
  
• Field of view of the sight at maximum zoom;
  
• Gun ready indicator (shows ready status and reload time).

How to create a user-made sight

The sighting reticle is a block of settings of elements: scales, lines, moving parts and text. The settings are set as one .blk file that can be edited using any text editor.

Creating a reticle template for a single vehicle

• Follow the first 2 steps described in the instructions for setup a user-made sight;
• Create the file sight_1.blk in the subfolder with the vehicle ID;
  
• Edit this particular sight_1.blk file using any text editor. The result can be viewed in real time by taking the vehicle to a test drive and by pressing Alt + F9 to update game data.
  

Creating a reticle template for multiple vehicles

• Follow the first 2 steps described in the instructions for setup a user-made sight;
• Create the file sight_1.blk in the all_tanks subfolder;
• Now you just need to specify which vehicles have the available sight.
  

Open the .blk file of the sighting reticle using any text editor and add the following block to it:

matchExpClass {
}

You can specify the classes of vehicles for which the sight will be allowed for use or the specific list of vehicles inside this block.

Vehicle classes:

• exp_tank — light and medium tanks
• exp_heavy_tank — heavy tanks
• exp_tank_destroyer — tank destroyers, ATGM carriers
• exp_SPAA — SPAA and SAM

Inside the block you can specify several vehicle classes and even combine them with specific vehicles. For example:

 matchExpClass {
   exp_heavy_tank:b = yes
   ussr_object_120:b = yes
 }

This sight will be available for all heavy tanks and the Object 120.

Editing the .blk file of the sighting reticle

The content of the reticle file is as follows:

block_name {
  param_name: type = value
 
  block_name {
    param_name: type = value
  }
}

• block_name — the name of the block, it must start with a Latin letter or underscore and consist of Latin letters, numbers or underscores.
• param_name — the name of the parameter must start with a Latin letter or underscore and consist of Latin letters, numbers or underscores.
• type — parameter type, must be necessarily.

Parameter type can be one of:

• t — text (the value of the parameter must be enclosed in quotation marks "")
• r — a number
• i — an integer
• b — a boolean value in the form of yes / no on / off true / false or 1/0
• p2 — a range of data from 2 values ​​(p3 of three, p4 of four)

If an invalid variable type is specified, for example, instead of an integer textAlign: i = 1, you specify textAlign: i = 1,5 the game will not be able to read such a file and you will not see the changes you specified.

The following parameters can currently be changed in the code

Parameters for controlling the radial moving of lines, texts, circles:

A simple example of the thickness of notches and font size of an IT-1 sight after editing lineSizeMult:r=2.0 and fontSizeMult:r=2.0. Apart from these settings, the standard sight contains the block crosshair_distances, which determines how regularly the range correction notches will be placed.

crosshair_distances{
  distance:p3=200, 0, 0
  distance:p3=400, 4, 0
  distance:p3=600, 0, 0
  distance:p3=800, 8, 0
  distance:p3=1000, 0, 0
  distance:p3=1200, 12, 0
  distance:p3=1400, 0, 0
  distance:p3=1600, 16, 0
  distance:p3=1800, 0, 0
  distance:p3=2000, 20, 0
  distance:p3=2200, 0, 0
  distance:p3=2400, 24, 0
  distance:p3=2600, 0, 0
  distance:p3=2800, 28, 0
}

crosshair_distances can be set in three ways (important as: the methods cannot be mixed):

It works the same with the directional correction line:

 crosshair_hor_ranges {
   range:p2 = -32, 32
   range:p2 = -28, 0
   range:p2 = -24, 24
   range:p2 = -20, 0
   range:p2 = -16, 16
   range:p2 = -12, 0
   range:p2 = -8, 8
   range:p2 = -4, 0
   range:p2 = 4, 0
   range:p2 = 8, 8
   range:p2 = 12, 0
   range:p2 = 16, 16
   range:p2 = 20, 0
   range:p2 = 24, 24
   range:p2 = 28, 0
   range:p2 = 32, 32
 }

These are the parameters of the standard sight. Apart from these elements, the sight can also contain a few more blocks that provide new options.

Shell ballistics block

The standard sight automatically draws a target reticule on the basis of the ballistic data of the selected shell type. However, with the help of this block, you can create a sight that will permanently display several lines for various types of shells, and their ballistics will correspond to the in-game values.

To display these lines, you must add the ballistics block, including the required number of bullet blocks, each of which has its own settings that are responsible for drawing and placing lines. Shell ballistic data, which the game automatically recalculates into the distance between the line notches, are provided by the parameters:

• bulletType:t = "apcbc_tank" – ID of the ammunition type for which a line needs to be created (see the table of correspondence of shell types in the game localization).
• speed:r = 624.0 – initial shell speed, which can be seen in the shell’s card along with the name of the shell type.
  

Example ballistics block for the T-55A tank and three shell types, APFSD ZBM25, KS-ZBK17 and composite armor-piercing BR-412D:

Parameters within bullet block:

A twin machine gun line can also be set in a bullet block. To do this, enter the following parameters:

• triggerGroup:t = "coaxial" (mandatory)
• speed:r = 815.0

Radial scales and elements (block ballistics/bullet):

In case with the radial scale the parameter crosshairDistHorSizeMain has the following meaning:

• x - circumference thickness
• y - radius of a circle

In case with the radial scale the parameter crosshair_distances/distance.z means the radius of a circle.

drawUpward changes the scale displaying to a mirror one.

Draws

For maximum sight customization, you can use the drawLines and drawTexts blocks, with the help of which you can draw elements from the cutoffs and text, indicating their coordinates:

Draw lines

drawLines {
 line { line:p4 = 0, -1.0, 0, -0.018; move:b = false; }
 line { line:p4 = -50, 30, -50, 40; thousandth:b = true; }
}

To draw one line, you have to enter 4 coordinates – the offset in fractions of the screen of its start and end.

line { line:p4 = 0.25, -0.25, 0, -0.0; move:b = false; } – this block draws one line which begins in the upper right quarter of the screen and ends in the center of the screen. It is static and does not move when a range is entered.

For convenience when creating historical reticules, thousandth can be set to true to represent editing units in mils by indicating the coordinate offset for the start and end of the line in thousands too. When thousandth is set to false, one mil is approximately to 0.04 units

For example, line { line:p4 = -32, -32, 0, 0; thousandth:b = true; } will show a diagonal line extending 32 mils to the left:

Drawing text

drawTexts {
  text {
    text:t = "X" // desired symbol
    align:i = 0 // offset relative to its indicated position
    pos:p2 = 32, 0 // coordinates of the X and Y symbol positions in fractions of the screen
    move:b = no // whether the text will move when a range is entered
    thousandth:b = yes // or in thousands
    size:r = 1.7 // text size
    highlight:b = yes
}

Drawing circles

drawCircles {
  circle {
    segment:p2 = 0.0, 360.0; // Sector of a circle
    pos:p2 = 0.0, 90.0; // Position
    diameter:r = 3.0; // Diameter. If thousandth=yes, then in thousandths
    size:r = 2.0; // Line Thickness
    move:b = no;
    thousandth:b = yes;
  }
}

Drawing painted figures on the basis of a quadrangle

With its help you can draw different types of figures that have 4 vertices and figures of arbitrary shape with 3 (triangle) or 2 (line) vertices.

drawQuads {
  quad {  // Simple fixed quadrangle
    tl:p2 = -10, -10; // Top left top
    tr:p2 = 10, -10; // Top left top
    br:p2 = 10, 10; // Top right bottom
    bl:p2 = -10, 10; // Top left bottom

    thousandth:b = true;
  }

  quad {  // Object that can be moved along the radius
    tl:p2 = -10, -140;
    tr:p2 = 10, -140;
    br:p2 = 0, -96;
    bl:p2 = 0, -96;

    center:p2 = 0, -90; // The center of the figure is needed for correct rotation. By default the geometric center of a shape.

    radialCenter:p2 = 0.0, 0.0;
    radialAngle:r = 0;
    radialMoveSpeed:r = 6.04;

    moveRadial:b = yes;
    thousandth:b = true;
  }
}

ID of shell types and their localization in the game

Cannons

Machine guns

Example of implementing a historical sight reticule

Using the entire spectrum of possibilities for creating user-made sight reticules, one can create sight reticules that will be as close as possible to the historical versions.

As an example, here is the sight skin of the Italian P40 tank:

And the settings block that can be used to create this sight: